The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence is a grassroots organization advocating for leadership, mobilization, and amplification in order to better support efforts “that demand a change of conditions that lead to domestic violence such as patriarchy, privilege, racism, sexism, and classism.”
In America, domestic violence is the leading cause of death for women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth, which is the subject of a recent study and a very sad fact, indeed.
While we might think violence against women is a rare phenomenon, in fact, it permeates the fabric of cultures around the world from America, to Europe, to Afghanistan and Iran, and well beyond. This is a global problem.
At a recent luncheon in St. Petersburg, I heard (“Zi”) Abdul Hasib Azizi speak about his flight to America and the manner in which his family, specifically his mother and sister and continue to suffer under a repressive regime.
Patriarchal social constructions can take all kinds of shapes; both intimate and public, religious and secular. Perhaps domestic violence is the most insidious form of abuse but it is only one of many kinds of dehumanizing and violent actions that threaten women.
Here in St. Petersburg, there are a number of resources national and local that aim to support women victimized by violence. CASA seeks to stand up against silence by focusing on prevention through education and by offering emergency services to those in need. Alpha House helps new and pregnant mothers with housing, education, and supportive services.
The national domestic hotline is: 800-799-7233
*The banner for this blog was taken from one of our Silent No More Workshops, facilitated by Museum of Motherhood founder, Martha Joy Rose
MoM’s Phone Number is 877-711-MOMS (6667). We are a safe space for women, mothers, and families. At MoM, we share our stories and find strength and hope.
BH: To my surprise, when I became a mother, my work became so much more collaborative. Before I had children, I worked alone in the studio on personal projects. I used the space whenever I wanted, including late at night.The idea of sharing did not work with my entire approach to art-making. The changes began during my first pregnancy, when I had to change mediums because I developed an allergy to turpentine. After my first child was born, I worked at home painting small works in watercolor on a desk. Later, I started working with other moms.
All my support came from other mothers. I was lucky enough to be part of the group “A Studio of Her Own” which included a lot of other young moms with kids. A few of us got together to rent collaborative studio space that was child-friendly, and people used it at different times. We did a series of site-specific projects together, working on big murals and projects in historic buildings and public spaces. I love working big and not having to clean up a studio space. My friend Julia Aronson and I did a series of collaborative murals. We discussed the idea, then alternated painting days with each other, in a kind of visual game of Exquisite Corpse.We had to let go of control and let someone else in. We kept a blog about our last project [Link below].
At home my kids get into my art materials, so I got them their own sketchbooks and supplies. They still always want mine though.
RG: Were the changes in motherhood a surprise?
BH: I knew something was going to change but didn’t know how. I foresaw needing to work smaller. The opening of working collaboratively with other mothers was a good surprise.
RG: How do you fit in studio time with kids?
BH: My three children are now in kindergarten, pre-school, and daycare, respectively. Until each baby was a year old, I hired a babysitter once a week so I could have painting time, and I attended a late-night sculpture group. During the pandemic, for a year I didn’t have childcare so couldn’t do any art, except what I called my ‘stolen sketch time’. Before then, I found ways to paint or draw daily.
RG: Was there a big shift going from one child to 2?
BH: Yes. Two is more complicated because there’s a toddler to run after. I am always outnumbered. But for me the biggest shift was going from 0 to one child. The actual transition into motherhood has been transformative.
RG: What books, groups, web resources do you recommend?
BH: I find that working with other mothers is the most helpful way to navigate creativity amidst the chaos of motherhood. I am part of a wonderful poetry group called Mama Poets Write who used to meet once every two weeks for a night of writing. For art practice, I have artist friends who I would meet regularly. I worked with Julia Aronson on the mural projects and I participate in a regular sculpture group of women of different ages. I found my tribe and painting friends after having kids.
RG: Is there anything you would change or do differently?
BH: I was teaching before the pandemic in 3 different places. During the pandemic, it was a real struggle to teach on zoom with kids at home. I didn’t go back to teaching until after lockdown was over because it was too difficult to get childcare. I used to teach art at Brandeis University in the summer and I really miss it. I found there isn’t that much flexibility in teaching so between lockdowns and quarantines, I transitioned to giving workshops and doing freelance editing. The work does take away from my art practice – it’s a constant juggle to make time and space.
RG: What’s your biggest struggle?
BH: A big struggle- quoting Virginia Woolf and her ‘Room of One’s Own’ – is a prescient issue. The lack of space for a mother-artist is huge. I need a space for myself to maintain my art practice. Yet, now even my bedroom is not my own. When you are pregnant, even your own body is not your own. I was never alone during the pandemic and I would like to find another collaborative space. Our original space was located in Beit Alliance, a subsidized cultural center. We had an amazing synergy and did some exceptional projects. But, as mothers of young children, we were not typical artists. We look or behave like people assume artists do. We didn’t attend late night events. We set up alternate events which were well attended, but our landlords did not renew our lease. I do think there is some discrimination against mother-artists and caretakers. I’m currently working in Ha Mifal where my sculpture group has a residency and exhibition. I am sure new things will arise as the future unfolds.
The Mother of Frankenstein’s Monster (2021) researches the production of bodies and identities in relation to motherhood. ” My children were produced by and within my body”. Production continues after birth: children’s bodies grow and their identities develop. The identity of the mother is also born in relation to the child’s birth. This inquiry revolves around the idea of maternal “split subjectivity” and the child as an “unruly descendant” of the mother. It researches the conjunction of symbiosis and struggles present within a mother-child relationship.
The project includes an audio essay intended to be listened to at home. Listen to it while you are doing the dishes, or picking up toys from the living room floor. It departs from Mary Shelley’s famous novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818) and invites the listener to reflect upon maternal aspects present within their own lives, within their own homes.
THE MOTHER OF FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER, Essay by Clara Aldén
Are you familiar with the story about Frankenstein’s monster?
Direct your gaze upon your child, and listen to this:
Dr Frankenstein was just a student when he started the creation of his creature. He struggled for two years to conceive his baby; stealing bones from graveyards, and intestines from slaughterhouses and autopsies. To create human life was his greatest ambition.
Yet, when the creature opened his eyes the only thing Dr Frankenstein felt was fear.
Why was he frightened?
I think he could sense that he had lost control over his creation.
Have you ever felt that you have lost control over your creations?
I imagine that Doctor Frankenstein didn’t understand what he was getting himself into when he conceived his baby.
My children were materialized out of a moment of loss of control. We lost control for a second and they started existing. The first time it happened I wasn’t aware of it for several weeks. The second time I immediately felt a new presence within my body.
“The idea of two people occupying one body is bizarre and disturbing. And yet, we all began life inside the body of another human being—immersed in a systemic interchange, absorbing both nutrients from the maternal body and hormonal derivatives of her emotions, while pumping out refuse through her bodily orifices.“
My pregnancy felt parasitic. I struggled my entire life to become autonomous, and now I was slowly dividing into two. My body swelled and grew. Inside my body grew the body of another.
My insides were suddenly someone else’s outsides and I bumped my stomach on tables as I tried to navigate this universe.
“As I lean over in my chair to tie my shoe, I am surprised by the graze of this hard belly on my thigh. I do not anticipate my body touching itself, for my habits retain the old sense of my boundaries. In the ambiguity of bodily touch, I feel myself being touched and touching simultaneously, both on my knee and my belly. The belly is other since I did not expect it there, but since I feel the touch upon it, it is me.”
It is impossible to physically tell if a pregnant person is one or two people.
The subject of the pregnant is split.
Do you recognize the sensation of your mind being two places at once?
How many creatures do you have within your care?
Look around you: we’ve already established that there are children within your care. But apart from that? Any pets? Or old parents that need care? Any plants that need water? How many things would not survive if you just got up and walked away?
Like Dr Frankenstein did.
During pregnancy a body is created. But a person is not just a body. Dr Frankenstein created a body but abandoned it immediately after birth. He got scared and ran away. His monster was left to care for himself. He wandered around trying to find company, but everywhere he turned he got violently rejected. The only thing he craved was love and affection. When he realized that this was something he would never obtain, he turned to his creator:
“Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall be virtuous.”
My children are neither monsters nor fallen angels. But they are my unruly descendants.
Physically detached from me. Free to roam the world. It is impossible to understand where I end and they begin.
Look at your baby: think about the complexity of bones, arteries and blood cells, nerves that exist under their skin. Imagine the universe that inhabits their minds.
For the longest time I wasn’t able to face my children. I looked at them but did not see them. I was afraid that if I did, truly look at them, they would be pulled away from me like Eurydice was from Orpheus when he couldn’t keep himself from looking back at her on their way back up from the underworld.
I tried to make a drawing of my eldest, when he was just a couple of weeks old and realized that from now on, everything I produce, with hands, mind, voice, would stand in the shadow of the creativity of my womb.
Nothing could ever compete with these creations.
These creations also made it perfectly clear that they demanded my total focus and attention. No time for other artifacts.
What happens when the needs and wishes of your creations collide with your own?
Frankenstein’s monster started out as an idéa that grew into an obsession and then into a body. The movements of this newborn body revealed a free will, detached from the intentions of its creator.
“Sometimes words trigger off cataclysms, sometimes acts, sometimes physical conditions.“
The monster followed in the footsteps of his creator. But somewhere during this race across the globe the roles were shifted; the antagonist became the protagonist, and the creator started chasing his creation.
Clara Aldén (b.1988) is a Swedish artist working and living in Gothenburg. She holds a BFA from Bergen Art Academy (UIB, NO) and a MFA from HDK-Valand (GU, SE), where she graduated in 2021. Her work has been displayed in Västerbottens Museum (SE), Göteborgs Konsthall (SE), Index (SE) and Bergen Kunsthall (NO) to name a few.
Clara works with sculpture, drawing and text-based art. Her work is situated within the private sphere, and she employs her immediate surroundings to research general societal structures. Since becoming a mother her work has mainly focused on domestic and maternal thematics. Within Clara’s artistic research, motherhood is considered a practice and not a state of being. Likewise, this practice is not considered to be limited by biological bounds. She is inspired by Donna Haraway’s thoughts on kin-making, and even if the maternal interest grew out of her biological motherhood, her thoughts and research stretch away from the immediate biological connotations and wishes to explore the practice of maternity in the expanded notion. The notion of care, regarding interruption and control loss as a positive force, and trying to work in a relational and non-autonomous manner are examples of maternal aspects important within her work.
Procreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 49th edition of this scholarly discourse. Literature intersects with art to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA #artandmotherhood
Lillian Isabella is an award-winning documentary theatre maker. She’s looking to interview at least 100 different people with all different kinds of pregnancy and birth stories throughout the Summer of 2020.
If you have been pregnant, are pregnant, or have given birth (of all ages), as well as the people who support pregnancy including doulas, doctors, midwives, acupuncturists (who help pregnant women), she’d love to speak with you for a new documentary play she’s developing!
The narrative of the play will be formed by the people she talks to and she’d like to get a wide snapshot of the state of pregnancy and birth in the United States and how it compares to abroad.
Her first documentary play was commissioned by the Metropolitan Playhouse and was about the legendary Jonas Mekas. Her second docu play, How We Love/F*ck, celebrated female sexuality and had its world premiere at Cherry Lane Theatre.
CRAFTING COVID: Embodying Disobedience, Calls to Action & Motherhood at the End of the World /Submissions through June 30, 2020
How have our lives changed in 2020? How are they the same? Is feminism taking a back seat as mothers turn to homeschooling, as salaries fade, hardship and isolation fray nerves, and as illness coupled with civil disobedience take shape on the streets?
Let these writings serve as a site of resistance as we practice the ongoing labor of birthing, art-making, scholarship, caregiving, salary-making, and survival in the time of COVID. Let us offer hope, support, and empowerment through knowledge, education, and shared experiences.
This special edition of the Journal of Mother Studies seeks to elucidate the experiences of families from an interdisciplinary perspective.
We have already received multiple submissions on a variety of topics from those conducting research, making home-site projects, working in hospital or alternative birth settings, as well as auto-ethnographic perspectives. Submissions are open on a rolling basis to all, through the month of June 2020.
JourMS submissions are peer-reviewed and the journal is published annually on September 1 each year online.
The Editorial Collective of the Journal of Mother Studies invites submissions of scholarly articles and essays from the Interdisciplinary Humanities as defined by the arts, history, culture, the social sciences, women’s and gender studies, literary studies, anthropology, the folkloric, psychology, the digital humanities, and media studies. We encourage dialogue between varying fields and welcome feminist critiques of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, technology, media, public health, and nation. The Journal also features book reviews about newly penned and forthcoming works.
Please submit abstracts electronically. We will then contact you and ask you to submit a full MS Word attachments article via e-mail: JourMS@gmail.com
All work should be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, in 12-point Times font
Scholarly essays should be 5-18 pages double-spaced. Reviews should be approximately 500 words (we are flexible).
JourMS is interdisciplinary, therefore, writers can follow either APA or MLA format (depending on your discipline). Double-space all text, on 8 1/2 X 11-inch paper, using Times New Roman. American spelling.
All manuscripts must be submitted with a cover document:
Include a page with author’s name, address, email, phone number, brief bio, affiliation, & recent publications
A 250-word abstract
You are welcome to submit original art, or photographic images along with your manuscript; please ensure that you have (or will) proper permissions. Additionally, we will accept alternative formats such as PowerPoint, video, audio, and visual presentations.
We will send you an acknowledgment of receipt once your submission is processed. The Editorial Board reviews all submissions before sending them out for external, anonymous peer review. We may provide reader comments, and ask you to revise and resubmit your work.
Please submit a final manuscript in Word Document to JourMS@gmail.com
Seeking additional editorial board members as well for this year’s edition
Please circulate widely! PDF is here for sharing: JourMS_CFP_2020
How have our lives changed in 2020? How are they the same? Is feminism taking a back seat as mothers turn to homeschooling, as salaries fade, hardship and isolation fray nerves, and as illness coupled with civil disobedience take shape on the streets?
